


in the end we both went mad

by aliciaxadrienne



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Sad Fluff, car crash, coma buddies, i didn't just make it up, i might just be on crack who knows, i swear i read an article on this once, i'm not on crack mom i promise, it's just a really sad and cute fic, surprisingly minimal amount of swearing hmm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliciaxadrienne/pseuds/aliciaxadrienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashton causes a car crash, goes into a coma, and ends up falling in love with the boy in the other car he almost killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the end we both went mad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolfgenes (ruperts)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruperts/gifts).



> birthday fic for my love gabi. i love you more than pizza, darlin. you are spectacular and so very talented and you make me very, very happy when everything else makes me want to cry.  
> also thank you to ellie for beta-ing you are the real MVP and ily  
> this fic is based on wonderland by my girl taylor swift (drinking game: take a shot every time i title a fic after one of her songs) if you're not familiar with it, I would recommend listening before or after you read. :)

It was just another Friday night.

Ashton had been hell-bent on getting to another one of Calum’s parties; not because he actually wanted to go, but because leaving Calum alone to host a party was always a recipe for disaster. The poor kid was incapable of responsibility. So Ashton had enlisted himself as the secondary host, picking up everything that was necessary for what Calum claimed would be “the rager of the century,” even though there wasn’t a whole lot of competition for that title.

The party had went just swell; only four different girls had spilled their shitty drinks on Ashton’s favorite button down, and Calum had disappeared almost immediately after he opened the door to see his less flighty best friend holding several bags worth of alcoholic beverages. God, Ashton really fucking hated being mature. Sometimes he just wished he could tell all of his duties to fuck off and sit around on his bed all day. 

His shirt was still sticky on the drive home, and he desperately wanted to pull over, but it was close to three am and work was really up his ass lately about showing up late, especially for Saturday shifts. There wasn’t a minute to spare. 

Which is why Ashton had started speeding. Really speeding. Enough to make his sober self cringe and whine, and want to lock himself up in the basement for a couple days as punishment. It was all Ashton’s fault.

His lack of concern probably revolved around his perfect driving record and the two beers adding just enough liquid courage to make him feel invincible, but also very in control. Ashton goes to turn the radio up, but realizes after about ten seconds that Lauren’s fuckin Taylor Swift CD is still playing, and he doesn’t hate the girl’s music but fuck where is his iPod..

The second mistake he made was looking down at just the right (or wrong) moment. In that one moment, his car collided with that of another.

Ashton looks up just in time to see his engine partially crushed and the airbag on the passenger side of the car bursting out. His head makes impact with the driver’s wheel and just like that, he’s out cold.

\--------------

He shifts in and out of consciousness for a while, mostly because his head is pounding and it feels like he’s bent over in half. Ashton knows it hasn’t been too long though because he can still hear that fucking Taylor Swift CD, the last few notes of what he thinks is Clean fading out, and he’s immediately pissed off with himself for not even managing to turn the volume off. Pain shoots through his torso and he groans, reaching a limp arm to wipe his forehead of what he assumed was sweat. But that’s unmistakably red on his fingertips when he looks at them again.

Ashton’s head still feels hazy from the impact and he’s reminded of that time he got a concussion from falling backwards out of his chair in class. He tries to remember more about what it felt like but sharpness keeps preventing him from thinking about anything but the immediate pain. 

_flashing lights and we, took a wrong turn and we.._

\--------------

There’s an excess of brightness. He hears voices, some panicked and some not. He thinks he hears his mother, maybe that’s his head playing tricks. Or giving him what he wants before he dies.

Paramedics are rushing to get him out of his car, but he wants to stay there. Calum will need someone to nurse him out of his hangover in the morning, and he’s the only willing candidate in their group of friends.

Ashton wants to tell them it’s okay. He’s fine. He can’t feel anything below his chest and that’s probably a good thing. His neck feels like it’s on fire. His vision is all blurry so he closes his eyes, inhales the smell of smoke and burnt rubber. 

\--------------

There’s a distinct feeling of bliss that rolls over Ashton when he wakes up again. His head doesn’t hurt anymore, and he can’t feel any blood leaking from the laceration on his forehead. It’s almost like the crash never happened at all.

One of his first thoughts revolves around the other vehicle. He wonders who was in it, if they’re dead. Is he a murderer now? 

Opening his eyes, Ashton panics when he sees only white. Everything in all directions is expansive white space. There isn’t a texture to the ground underneath him, and the air he breathes in feels stale, like a forgotten package of chips he had left in his backseat. 

He sits up and instinctively wishes for a mirror, just to check if everything really is okay, because he’s still got his vanity. 

When Ashton turns around again, his fingers embrace cool metal. It takes him a second to remember his motor skills- he had lost all feeling in the crash- but he eventually gets his hand around the neck of what he now recognizes is a mirror.

“What the fucking..”

He hears a voice off in the distance, although Ashton really just assumes it’s far away because everything is white and there’s no way to determine what’s here and there. It’s just one big mindfuck.

“Who the hell are you?”  
There’s a figure, tall and lanky and kinda freakish. Ashton wonders if the monster in one of his nightmares from when he was a kid is coming back to haunt him, but decides that would be ridiculous when the figure speaks again.

“Do you know how I got here?”

Ashton shrugs, not really entirely sure why he’s not dead himself. 

“Okay, well I was on my way to a very important meeting and I-”

“You were on your way to a meeting at three am?” Ashton cracks a grin at the figure, who is slightly closer and looks to be a guy a little younger, but a few inches taller, than himself.

“It was really far away,” The figure defends itself, “and I would have gotten there on time if some idiot hadn’t hit my car.”

The pieces connect in Ashton’s brain and he remembers an article he read once online, speculation about how trauma patients that end up in the same ICU might often live in the same coma dream. When he read it, the idea had seemed a smidge too science-fiction for his liking. Now it just seems like a terrible idea.

Especially because he’s now trapped with who he almost killed, could still potentially be responsible for the death of.

“I’m Luke,” The boy offers a hand, and Ashton looks at him for the first time. For someone who’s in a coma, he’s got a bright smile on his face, pretty pink lips with a small black ring jutting out at the corner. His hair is blonde, flattened to his forehead, but Ashton can tell that’s not the way it’s normally styled. Crystal sea blue eyes are framed by almost girlishly long eyelashes.

Luke is the epitome of a pretty boy. Which has always been Ashton’s weakness.

Either because of the intense analysis or Ashton’s refusal to shake his hand, the smile on Luke’s face wanes and the wheels in Ashton’s head spin wildly, looking for an excuse. I’m sorry, you’re just so beautiful I needed a second to recover sounds a little too much like a pick up line, and if there’s one thing Ashton is certain of, it’s that he’s got more game than that. 

Instead of something smooth, Ashton just giggles, shakes Luke’s hand just as he’s about to pull it away. “I’m Ashton.”

The look on Luke’s face reminds Ashton of how you respond to a overeager child, which he supposes is accurate. 

“Okay, Ashton, where are we?”

“Don’t ask questions, Luke, you’re way too curious.” Ashton wags his finger at the boy, “Hasn’t anyone ever warned you about curiosity killing the cat?”

\--------------

Time moves slowly, or it moves incredibly fast, they really have no way of knowing. It doesn’t really matter, either, because if they want, they could change time, and say it’s two pm yesterday. There’s no one, and nothing, to say they can’t.

Ashton and Luke build things from the ground up. They don’t actually do any physical labor, but in order to create things, they have to focus really hard. Luke’s pretty good with math and science so he explains to Ashton that they’re not really creating or destroying matter, because that’s impossible, and that they’re just in a dream. 

Being one of only two people in the entire world starts to take it’s toll on Ashton. 

For one, he no longer has any responsibilities. He doesn’t even have to keep himself fed. He tells Luke he wants to anyway, and the blonde gives him a look but accepts it. 

That’s how they co-exist. Ashton acts like everything is normal and Luke panics. He never stops panicking, trying to find his way back. He even tries keeping track of time, no matter how much Ashton reminds him how useless it is.

“We’ve been here three days,” Luke says when they’re watching the birds chirp in the morning, a tremor audible in his voice.

Ashton shakes his head. “You have no way of knowing that.”

“You have no way of disputing it, either.”

They glare at each other, reaching an impasse. There’s a nonverbal agree-to-disagree pact made.

Ashton puts a comforting hand on Luke’s back, rubs gentle circles. He feels for him, even if he won’t admit it. And the guilt has been eating away at his tough exterior.

\--------------

Eventually Luke stops trying to remember what day it would be. Ashton wants to consider it a victory but he supposes it also counts as a loss of hope that he never had to begin with.

He desperately wants to tell Luke that it was his fault. Maybe that’s how it works. The boy is so adamant that his injuries weren’t even that awful. Maybe if Ashton just tells him, he won’t be trapped here anymore and there won’t be any more poor little puppy face Lukey to deal with. 

But Ashton is way too greedy to let that happen. He doesn’t want to suffer in this expanse alone, and maybe that makes him more of a villain than a victim, but he doesn’t care. Those are just technicalities.

Luke starts having nightmares. He’s terrified of not waking up in the real world so going to sleep every night is a struggle. There’s a little part of him convinced that every single day they spend there is another day that people on the outside lose faith in their recovery. Ashton encourages him to stay awake if he needs to, reminds him that sleeping isn’t actually necessary for them. But they’re both trying as hard as they can to retain some normalcy. 

“I don’t know how you do this,” Luke whimpers, curled up in a ball on the couch in their living room. It’s a few minutes after he’s decided it’s time to go to bed. The sky darkens to a nighttime glow at his request. There isn’t a moon, but the wind whips around wildly.

“Do what?” Ashton asks from where he’s perched on the bar in the corner of the kitchen. They’ve got at least two hundred feet of space between them, but white noise doesn’t exist so every little vocalization is clear as day.

Luke hiccups. “Go about things like they’re normal when they’re not. Every time you empty that glass of vodka,” he nods to the shot glass in Ashton’s hands, “it’s instantly full again. Not to mention you’re not actually any less sober than you were when you first walked over there.”

Ashton shrugs. “It’s a never ending supply of alcohol. And it’s free.”

The blonde looks at him in awe, runs a hand through his hair and catches a few fingers at the top of his quiff, tugs on it. Ashton watches silently. “It’s only costing you your life, Ashton.”

“Wasn’t doing much with it anyways,” Ashton grimly smiles. He swallows another shot and slams the glass down on the bar, observes it shatter into a thousand pieces. He doesn’t flinch. There’ll be plenty more where that came from.

The older boy hops off the bar, strolls over to Luke. “Besides, if I’m being honest with myself, I kind of like spending all this time with you.”

He stands in front of the blonde, carefully considers his next move. Luke is looking at him, confused, opens his mouth to ask what’s going on. 

Ashton takes his own advice and stops thinking before bending down so they’re looking each other in the eyes. They’re close, noses practically touching, and Ashton is staring at those pretty pink lips while Luke is probably giving himself a heart attack, over thinking like always.

“Tell me if I should stop,” Ashton breathes, shaking a little with nerves. He grips the fabric of the arm of the couch next to them to hide it.

Luke shakes his head once, and it’s consent enough.

The weather outside goes from windy to calm.

Ashton presses a steadying hand onto the side of Luke’s face, allows himself to enjoy the moment for what it is. He’s always enjoyed the anticipation of a kiss more than the actual action.

Everything is silent around them (because things only really exist when at least one of them are paying direct attention to it) and Ashton presses his lips against Luke’s before he loses his nerve.

He can feel Luke not breathing beneath him and he chuckles a little, plays with the hair at the back of the blonde’s neck and places gentle kisses on his jawline.

“If you don’t kiss me back, I’m going to have to go hide in my room for the rest of forever,” Ashton jokes halfheartedly, because he’s not exaggerating. At all.

There’s a visible change in Luke’s demeanor, almost like the small bout of the older boy’s insecurity has kicked him into gear. He moulds his lips against Ashton’s with a vengeance, smiles brightly when Ashton’s body is wracked by shivers, startled by the sudden response.

Luke wraps his fingers in Ashton’s curls the way he’s wanted to every since he first spoke to the boy, tries not to pass out because this is what he’s wanted for so long. He doesn’t really know how long but it feels like forever. Their lips just fit so nicely together.

Ashton runs the tip of his tongue along the seam in Luke’s lips, trying not to seem as desperate as he really is. Luke accepts the intrusion and Ashton’s heart does flips in his chest.

They kiss for a few minutes, but then the moment is ruined when the older boy pushes too far, moves to push Luke down on the couch. The blonde reaches a hand out, puts a physical boundary between them.

“It was just.. really sudden,” He whispers, digging his nails into the upholstery underneath him.

Ashton nods, goes to apologize but Luke shakes his head.  
“I still enjoyed it,” he continues, “just a little scared you’re doing it out of convenience.”

“What does that mean?”

Luke turns away from him then, angles himself so he can pull his knees up to meet the rest of his body. “We’re the only two people here, you must get bored with just your hand.”

“It’s not like that, Luke.” Ashton is a little hurt by the insinuation but says nothing else, tries to keep his ugly pride on a leash.

The blonde sighs heavily, looks at Ashton with his big, sad eyes. “That’s the only reason I can make sense of for you to go for someone like me, so.”

\--------------

Ashton’s mom used to tell him he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Not because he was an asshole or anything, he just wasn’t capable of the forethought it took to do something unpredictable for another person.

Luke makes him want to be better. He’s kind of overwhelmed by the feeling, to be honest, the desire to set a precedent that will follow Ashton for the rest of his life. He's never wanted to bring the moon and the stars down from the sky as a gift for another person before. 

But he tries so hard. Every single morning Ashton tries to get up before Luke, make pancakes for the both of them, but it’s like the blonde knows his plans. Ashton could get up at three am to prepare breakfast and Luke would still be seated at the kitchen table complaining that he ‘couldn’t sleep.’ It’s irritating and endearing at once.

The closest they’ve real gotten to anything truly romantic is when Ashton willed there to be a sunset just as Luke was getting out of the shower. It’s meant to be a real heartstring puller, but Luke just smiles a little. 

“Have you ever thought about going exploring?” Luke asks when they’re lying in bed after a day spent baking. The younger boy has taken a likeness to curling himself up in Ashton’s arms whenever they’re not preoccupied. Ashton doesn’t mind and even encourages it sometimes.

Ashton shakes his head, thoughts already consumed with what he’s been thinking about all day. Every chance he’s had to be cute and romantic has been ruined, which means he just has to go for it.

He shifts his body so they’re facing each other. Luke’s eyes are closed, but he’s got a happy grin on his face. When he looks like this, Ashton is reminded of kittens.  
“Luke,” The curly haired boy calls, “you’re not asleep, are you?” He runs a finger over Luke’s cheekbones, blows air out of his nostrils in pretend annoyance.

Luke laughs once, flutters his eyes open and raises his eyebrows in response.

“I wanted to ask you a question, don’t sass me.” Ashton acts at being offended. He’s shaking again, isn’t hiding it very well though. The blonde beside him just rolls his eyes.

“Do you think, maybe, we could be considered dating at this point?”

“There isn’t really much competition, Ashton.”

“Still..” Ashton’s voice cracks and he winces at the sign of his own weakness.

“Yes, I suppose we’re dating.”

\--------------

He should have just told him as soon as he knew. Anything would have been better than this. Being ignored would have been better than this.

A look of realization flies over Luke’s face after a dumb remark about Ashton's car being destroyed slips out, and he’s up in a flash. Ashton knows he’s lost him, has no chance of defending himself. He doesn’t really want to, would rather suffer at Luke’s hands each and every day than give a bullshit excuse.

It starts pouring rain. Luke’s eyes are narrowed, glaring at the tree behind Ashton’s head. 

“It was you!” Luke accuses, but is it really an accusation when he’s dead on? “You fucking put me in this coma! Were you drunk?”

Ashton only nods, even though it’s not entirely true. “I was on my way home from a party.. had to work the next day. I didn’t think anyone else was on the road, Luke.” He takes a step towards the younger boy, hands up, palms spread in a sign of surrender. Ashton just wants to hold him. He’s never been so sorry about anything in his life. But then again he’s never fucked up this bad, never fallen in love with someone he’s responsible for nearly killing. Of course the first person he realizes he loves happens to be the one he’s hurt the most. 

The self-thrown pity party comes to an abrupt end when Luke lurches forward, punching Ashton in the chest. The blow knocks the wind out of his lungs. Instantaneously, the blonde collapses into his boyfriend’s arms.

“I’m only eighteen,” Luke whimpers, goes limp like a rag doll, strings cut, “why did you have to do this?”

“I’m sorry, you have to believe me. I regret it every fucking day.”

Luke scoffs, unbelieving. “No you don’t. Why should you? You lucked out, got to avoid all your responsibilities for a while and get some action. No pain, no gain, right?”

“I’m not that type of person, Luke, I’ve told you this before, remember?” Ashton argues. When Luke is silent he starts to doubt the other boy’s faith in him. “You do trust me, at least a little, right?”

Eventually Ashton gets sick of the silence and starts trailing kisses up Luke’s neck, wants to prove himself the way he’s always done it. Romance has never been his thing but he’s got years of experience that tells him that sex is.

Luke doesn’t say anything until they’re both undressed.

“This isn’t going to fix anything.”

“I know,” Ashton groans as the younger boy starts biting the skin at his neck, “just let me pretend it will for a little while.”

So Luke lets him.

\--------------

They’ve got mountains of free time and no responsibilities, even though Ashton supposes he could create some for himself if he really wanted to. But he feels like this is the long-awaited vacation he’s been craving ever since he graduated high school.

“I mean, one of us has got to leave eventually, right?” Luke asks, but he looks like he doesn’t want to know the answer. 

“No,” Ashton answers, and Luke looks at him, startled, “we could stay here forever. There’s no reason why we can’t.”

“They’ll shut our machines off.”

“Then we’ll be dead, and I’ll find you, somehow.”

Luke is silent, rolls his tongue over his lip ring, tries to picture being dead but comes up with a blankness that only scares him.

“I will always find my way back to you, Luke Hemmings.”

\--------------

Things start to crumble when Ashton suggests a beach day. They’ve barely made it to the beach before it’s made obvious that both boys are too irritable to be around each other.

“I wonder what it’s going to take to get back,” Luke starts, spread out on a towel that had appeared in his arms as soon as he agreed to visit the shoreline.

“Get back where?” Ashton questions, voice sounding dazed and uninterested by the conversation topic.

Luke sits up, pushes his sunglasses up onto his head, and looms over Ashton. “The real world, obviously.”

“This is the real world, Luke,” Ashton chasticizes, rolling his eyes before rolling onto his side.

“Nothing about this is real!” Luke hisses, looks around wildly. He jogs over to one of the trees growing back aways from the shore. Luke plucks one of the leaves and waits patiently. 

Within a few moments, there’s a new leaf to replace the old one, although this one is unnaturally purple.

“I made that happen. With my mind,” Luke stresses, waving the old leaf around before snapping a finger, making it disappear. He laughs, madly. “This is all in our heads, Ashton. I have family waiting for me! I have a life to lead!”

“Then fucking go already!” Ashton yells, not even bothering to sit up. “Jesus Christ, if I’m not enough for you then please, be my guest and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out!”

“I want to,” Luke spits through gritted teeth, sounds every bitter the bitter teenager he really is, “and I will. Just because you’ve built this place up in your head doesn’t mean you can take me down with you.”

“Don’t you worry, Luke, I’m fully aware that your dedication to me only lasts for the amount of time my dick is in your ass.” Ashton crosses his arms over his chest, proud of himself.

Luke goes from enraged to calm in a matter of seconds, but that scares Ashton more than anything else. “You’ll regret that one day.”

The curly haired boy doesn’t doubt that for a second, but that doesn’t mean he’ll take it back.

\--------------

“Luke?”

The blonde shifts in his sleep, semi-restricted by Ashton’s arms wound around his waist. He’s about to mumble a few cuss words at Ashton for waking him up in the dead of night when he realizes Ashton’s voice is not nearly that high pitched.

“Luke? Luke, baby, can you hear me?”

He recognizes the voice as his mother’s, screws his eyes shut. The universe cannot be this cruel to him. Absentmindedly, Luke plays with his fingers.

“Honey, I love you so much. We just want you to.. Oh my God! Jack! He just twitched his fingers!”

Luke grimaces. Liz’s voice is buzzing in his ears, much too loud for what he assumes is early morning.

“Luke.. I believe in you, and I know you’re strong enough to wake up from this.”

For a brief second, Luke can feel a foreign weight on his left hand. It feels comforting, but colder and lighter than anything he’s touched in a while. The sensation kind of reminds him of an ice bath.

Before he can shake Ashton awake in a panic, it’s gone.

He doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night, lies awake, waiting for another message in a bottle. When Ashton wakes up and expresses concern about the bloodshot eyes Luke’s sporting, he waves him off and prepares their morning coffee with shaking hands.

\--------------

“I don’t think I can stay here anymore,” Luke says quietly one evening, when Ashton’s got his arm around him and they’re talking about innocent stuff, safe things, making conversation that won’t cause Ashton’s skin to crawl.

Ashton tenses up, digs his fingertips into the fabric at Luke’s shoulder, stays silent.

“I can hear them sometimes,” The blonde looks apologetic, but Ashton can hear the excitement he’s trying to veil under uncertainty, “they’re still fighting for me. But I don’t have a lot of time.”

Ashton doesn’t want to say the wrong thing, so he just stares straight ahead. He feels Luke’s gaze burning into the side of his head but he doesn’t waver.

His question is obligatory. “Do you want me to stay?”

The answer is quick. “More than anything.”

Luke inhales. It’s a deep, noisy breath that makes Ashton feel jealous of the boy’s togetherness. He can already feel the space between them.“I believe in you, and I know you’re strong enough to wake up from this.” Luke says, although it sounds like he’s reciting out of a self-help manual.

Ashton clings onto Luke and tries to avoid explaining how scared he really is to lose him.

\--------------

One day, Luke doesn’t wake up. It’s not immediately after he says he doesn’t feel right being there anymore, so it’s more of a slap in the face than expected.

Ashton tries not to let it bother him when Luke isn’t up at the ass crack of dawn like normal. They did have a late night, after all. But it’s never stopped him from jumping all over the mattress and being a nuisance before. 

So the curly haired boy goes about his morning routine feeling a little more empty than he’s really used to. It almost feels like he’s back in his life before the crash. He wishes he could will himself to forget everything that has happened since he left Calum’s party. Ashton wishes he had never left his house. He wishes he had fucking stayed home and watched reruns of some nameless sitcom. Maybe if he and Luke had never met, there wouldn’t be this aching in his chest.

After having his coffee, Ashton goes back to check on Luke, already fearing the worst. The worst for him, technically, because it’s the best fucking thing that could have happened for Luke. He’s being selfish, but he really does not care.

Luke just looks like he’s sleeping. He looks well-rested, and it’s overwhelming how he can look so real in this universe while he’s existing in another. 

The temperature of his forehead is ice-cold. He doesn’t look dead. Ashton wants to pretend he isn’t.

He’s more than a little bitter, and now he doesn’t have anyone to hide it from. This was their world, they had literally created it together. Now that Luke’s gone, Ashton doesn’t have a reason to stay. But he can’t leave. He’s already tried, been wishing with all his might all morning. 

He doesn’t have any control over his own life and it’s the single most frustrating experience he’s ever gone through. 

The sky is grey. Ashton’s got a sneaking suspicion that he should try and do something about the body, at least, so he doesn’t have to stare at it for the rest of eternity. 

\--------------  
Luke wakes up to an empty hospital room.

It’s only temporary, of course, because within seconds there are nurses swarming around him, and within ten minutes his mother and Jack are by his side. Within an hour most of his family is coddling him, asking him if he’s okay. He hasn’t said a word yet, doesn’t know if he wants to. Everything around him is pandemonium. 

A nurse calmly informs him that he’s been in a coma for three weeks. She reminds him a little of Ashton, has a pretty smile and deep set dimples. Luke’s fingers twitch at his side as his subconscious bombards him with images of Ashton. He wonders if he was right about his theory, if they were really in the same coma ward. 

After begging for a few days, one of the nighttime shift nurses finally lets him stand up. She is adamant that it’s against protocol, but Luke has retained an astounding amount of his muscle mass for someone who’s done nothing but lay in bed for close to a month, and her interest gets the best of her.

“Can we take a walk?” He tries to make his voice sound much more pitiful and unused than it is. It’s true that Luke has avoided speaking to anyone besides his immediate family, but he hums a lot, when no one is looking. There’s one song in particular that he remembers Ashton used to sing in the shower.

The nurse, Shelia, she introduces herself as, must feel especially bad for him, because she doesn’t say anything about breaking the rules or getting fired if anyone sees them. It’s been a slow night anyways, she says. Apparently it’s a Wednesday, around twelve thirty in the morning. Dates have become inconsequential to Luke since he met Ashton, and he doubts they'll start mattering again, now that he's gone.

Luke grips the fabric of her blue scrubs when he takes his first step. She offers verbal encouragement but he doesn’t really hear her, just wants to find the coma ward again. They had moved him to a normal patient room just yesterday, despite his protests. When Luke had made a joke about it being much quieter in the coma ward, his mother had simply insisted he get a room all his own.

“How far away is the coma ward?” 

Shelia stops walking and effectively so does Luke. “Why do you want to go there, honey?”

He considers telling her the truth, but doesn’t really have the energy to explain something he doesn’t understand himself to her. So he decides to lie a little.

“There was this face I kept seeing,” Luke says quietly, “while I was in the coma, I mean.” Shelia nods, and she whispers back that if they hurry, they can get to the ward with a few free minutes before her shift ends.  
As expected, the closer they get to where Ashton might be, the faster Luke’s heart beats. By the time Shelia is sliding her security ID through the scanner, Luke feels like he just might fall over.

“What is his name, hun?” The nurse prods when they’ve been standing in the doorway for at least a minute.

“Ashton,” Luke answers, realizing he never found out what his boyfriend’s last name was.

It’s enough for Shelia, though, because she takes him down one of the rows of beds. Most of them are empty, but they walk past a couple patients. Luke shivers at the idea that he looked like they do for three whole weeks.

Shelia stops at the foot of one bed, nearly on the opposite side of the room from the bed that Luke remembers waking up in. 

“Irwin, Ashton,” She reads off from a clipboard, “organ failure after a car crash and internal bleeding led to a medically-induced coma.”

“What are his chances of survival?” Luke hates himself for asking.

The nurse looks apologetic, places her hand on Luke’s arm. “I’m not really supposed to say, but.. not good. His family wants to take him off life support before his birthday next week.”

“Does he get visitors?” 

“He did for the first two weeks. I haven’t seen any besides immediate family for a while, but I’ve been on night shifts since last Tuesday, so.” 

Luke tries to stop asking so many questions by letting go of Shelia’s arm and sitting down on the empty bed next to Ashton’s. The boy doesn’t look any different from how Luke remember him, just a little paler. 

He desperately wants to curl up in the bed like they used to do all the time, every time Luke felt insecure or alone or trapped in that universe of theirs. 

“Hey, Ashton,” Luke sighs, rubbing his thumb on the inside of the older boy’s wrist, avoiding the wires and tubes, “I’m going home tomorrow.” He wonders if Ashton can hear him like he could hear his mother that one time. “I would rather stay with you, but I have to go back to that life I was always so desperate to fight over.” He looks over at the monitor, observing the heartbeat that a machine is giving Ashton.

Shelia has gotten the hint and went to another patient, checking vitals that don’t need to be reviewed for another few hours.  
“I really wish we had met any other way, you know? Could you imagine if we had run into each other at a coffee shop or something?” Luke laughs, and his chest hurts from the action. “Don’t know how I’m going to go back without you.”

He coughs, wipes sweat off his forehead onto the sleeve of his hospital gown. “I guess what I want to say, before I never see you again, is that I love you, Ashton..” One of his hands goes to grip Ashton’s limp one. “And I don’t want to live a life that you’re not a part of.”

Ashton moves. Or, his hand does. 

Ashton’s fingers tighten around Luke’s like a vice, but that’s it. There’s no change on the monitor, which means it could have just been a spasm, _probably_ was. 

“Luke, we’ve got to go,” Shelia calls out from the opposite side of the room, “do you need me over there?”

“No!” He answers, too quickly. “I’ll be over there in a second.” Luke prys his hand away from Ashton, gently leaves a kiss on his forehead.

He’s halfway over to the exit when he hears a weak voice, as recognizable to him as his own.

“Luke?”


End file.
